CLOSED CLARKS PENSION SCHEMES

Use the drop-down menu below to get to information about your Clarks pension scheme.

Plan 35 is a section of the C & J Clark Pension Fund, where your benefit at retirement depends on how long you were a member of the Plan and your salary at the date you retired or became a deferred member.

Plan 35 closed to future accrual on 31 July 2018, which means there are no active members paying into the Fund.

The Clarks Flexible Pension Scheme, which closed to future accrual on 31 July 2018, has two sections: the Investment Related Section (formerly known as the money purchase section) and the Pay Related Section (formerly known as the final salary section).

If you paid contributions into the Investment Related Section, you have an individual Pension Account which is made up of the contributions paid in by you and Clarks, plus any investment returns.

If you paid contributions into the Pay Related Section, you ‘bought’ a certain amount of pension, expressed as a percentage of your Final Pensionable Salary. This pension will be available to you from the Scheme at retirement (which can be any time from age 55).

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

While we redevelop our pensions website in light of the changes that took place on 1 August, we have put up a much shorter FAQs section, reflecting the most common questions asked by members. When we launch our new website, we will again provide a comprehensive FAQs section, but in the meantime please use the ‘get in touch’ box below to contact the Pensions Department if you have any urgent question.

To help people save more for their retirement, all employers are now required by law to provide a workplace pension scheme for certain staff and pay money into it. We must auto-enrol any of our staff who meet all of the following criteria:

Earn over £192 per week (or £833 per month)

Are aged 22 or over and

Are under State pension age

If you meet these criteria on the start of the payroll period that spans the date you joined the Company, plus three months, you will be automatically enrolled into the Clarks Flexible Savings Plan. Aviva will write to you if you do meet the criteria and are enrolled into the Plan.

Alternatively, you can join the Plan earlier – simply complete an application form, which can be downloaded from this website.

This will be provided around the time that your first contributions are paid into the Clarks Flexible Savings Plan.

If you were an active member of one of Clarks’ pension arrangements that closed on 31 July, we expect to send you details of your benefits by the middle of September.

Yes, and more details will be provided in September.

If you wish to set up an ISA with Aviva and have contributions paid through Clarks payroll, you will first need to set up your ISA account with Aviva. Information is available on the Aviva site through the link on this site.

Members of the Clarks Flexible Savings Plan can take advantage of SMART Pensions – a smarter way of paying your pension contribution that won’t affect your Clarks pension benefit but will increase your take-home pay. SMART Pensions is a salary sacrifice scheme and is designed so that almost all eligible members will benefit and will want to be included. You don’t have to do anything to participate, as you will be included automatically in SMART Pensions. However, if you don’t wish to take part in this benefit then you have the option to opt out.

For full details of SMART, including an opt-out form, please visit Working at Clarks ‘Pensions and Employee Savings’ in the Benefits section of the Clarks Intranet (if you are in HQ or Distribution Centres) or visit ‘Managing your team – Tools for success/Reward, Recognition & Benefits’ (if you are in Store), or contact HR at HRSupportCentre@Clarks.com

CONSULTATION

On 15 January 2018, Clarks launched a consultation with its employees, over plans to close its existing pension schemes and replace them with a new, modern, defined contribution plan.